Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Why Catherine Howard Lost Her Head

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Poor Catherine Howard. She was smart, intelligent and undeniably beautiful, but ultimately no match for the vicious Henry VIII.She was certainly a victim but was she totally blameless?Joining Kate today is the always-fabulous historian Gareth Russell, author of Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII, to help us find out more about this short-lived Queen of England.Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click here to place your vote! Thank you! https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/votingThis episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click here to place your vote! Thank you! https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, betwixters. Butwistee, twi, twixty, twixters. Last year, you really pulled it out the bag for us. The bag, pockets, wherever you are storing the it, you pulled it out from there. We won the Listeners' Choice Awards at the British Podcast Awards last year. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? I certainly remember that. And I mostly remember that because none of us thought that that was ever, ever, ever going to actually happen. And it did. And it was so fabulous because that, award came from you guys, but it also helped more people find us and it helped boost the show,

and it just gave us top bragging rights around history hit. But what goes around, comes around, and the nominations are open once again. And now, I'm feeling the pressure because it's ours to lose, isn't it? So we are hoping upon hope that you might just help us do this again. So if you have ever smirked, giggled, or even, God forbid, learnt something whilst listening to betwixt the sheets, then you can vote for us for the Listeners' Choice Awards at this year's British Podcast Awards. It'll take 30 seconds of your entire life at the most. Just follow the link in the show notes, search for Betwixt and vote. And please remember to click on the confirmation email that will come through afterwards.

Otherwise, it won't count. And who knows, maybe we could do it again. Maybe we could be a double winner. Wouldn't that be something right? I'll be the show. Hello, my lovely Betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. to but twigs the sheets. Hello, how fabulous it is to see you once again. You little historical

pervert. Yeah, I know. I know what you really are. I know why you're here. It's why I'm here as well. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast book. My adults, other adults, about adult, things and an adulty way covering a range of all to bricks. Newspin, adult, too. Do you feel safer? I certainly feel safer. Right, let's crack on. Young people make mistakes all the time. That is just part of the deal. But what if you're married to Henry VIII and you are constantly watched by the fearsome Tudor court?

Was Catherine Howard, aka Henry's fifth wife, smarter than we give her credit for? How much of a royal mistake did she really make? And what happened in those secret meetings with Thomas Cull Pepper behind Henry's back. Joining me today is fellow superfan of Catherine's The Spectacular, wonderful historian and author, Gareth Russell. Axes at the Ready, everybody.

Let's do this. Well, hello and welcome back to the Twix the Sheets. It's only Gareth Russell. How you doing, lovely? Very well. Thanks for having me. Well, thank you for coming back. You are a firm favourite with our listeners. Thank you.

It's one of my favourite podcasts. I probably shouldn't say that, but it is. Yeah, yeah. It's all right. It's a safe space. I won't tell them. Thank you. We're here to talk about one of my favorites, actually,

because I've got so much sympathy for her. Yeah. Catherine Howard. Yeah, yeah. Catherine Howard. God lover. Yeah, no, she was, I sort of felt like sort of suddenly manipulated by some sort of spectral force into writing a biography of her.

Did you? How did that come about them? Well, because I was doing my post grad, and I went to my supervisor, and so I thought about doing something on the Queen's household. Because I'd done a little bit before, it was medieval studies, but I'd written a little bit about the Queen's gold and the tax in the Jewish community for Eleanor of Castile and Eleanor of Province.

And so I was sort of looking to do more in the Queen's household. And I said, what about doing something, you know, looking at how it functioned over a period of time, say from like Margaret of Vangueda, Catherine Parr, like the tail end, really of the Middle Ages. And my supervisor barely looked up and he said, that's insanity. well thank you for that i was like so on a maybe pile um so you're saying there's a chance yeah i was like a backup i love it he said actually for for this kind of thesis what they want is

deep dive right and trying to do margaret avondry to katherine power you'll be doing too much yeah yeah so he said look um pick a queen who wasn't there for a long amount of time henry the eighth has provided you with a few um and we'll study her household and so i i looked at pretty much, what, three, four and five, and thought, well, Catherine could work because you have a household being formed, a household in residence, a household on tour, and then a household under strain, so there could be four thesis chapters. Yeah. And there was never really any intention of finding anything different about her eyes. It was to be the household. But as I did the research, I thought, actually, the role of the family has been exaggerated, the role of the

household has been underplayed. She seems a bit different. And so that ended up becoming the basis of my first, like sort of full-length biography. So that, it was always, it kind of felt like I was bounced into Catherine and it was and then I ended up, you know, five years obsessively studying her. Wow, that's a long time. Well, come up with a thesis and then the book. So yeah, it was a, it was a lot longer than she's actually queen. And I kind of.

Yeah. And I kind of went into full like I retraced her route through the north of England. I would only stay in like places that were a bit ye old world. Yeah, you went method. I went, well, and it was terrible because I got to York during a heat wave, and I was in the top floor. And I, they gave me like three fans. I was barreling round that room like a character in a Tennessee Williams play, like just complaining about the heat or the whiskey of my hand. Love it.

So, yeah, but it, she was just, she was really good company. And I remember, like, the night I finished the book, I was like, wow, this was like a big chunk of my life. Yeah, yeah. I think of all the queens. You can disabuse me of this notion. Of all of Henry's little gaggle of queens, she's the one that we sort of know the least about. Because she wasn't queen for very long. She was never supposed to be the queen. She was very young. It seems like a random pick for Henry to have done it anyway. And then it's over as quickly as it started. Yeah, exactly. I think the chronology is really important there. It does lead to this longstanding but inaccurate claim that we don't really have the evidence. Actually, because of the interrogations. I don't have the evidence.

That's what that's what I mean. It's like, there's mountain. I was like, trust me, as someone who went mad of the National Archives, like, bad shit mad. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So it's there. And actually some of it's quite moving. And you can see, it's really interesting how they do the interrogation.

So because this isn't a prearranged plot, they're actually responding to information. They separate the witnesses into two groups and there's two sets of questioners and they're not allowed to compare notes. Oh my God. That's what parents do with children. Yeah. Separate them and then interrogate. Which is how they figure out.

some of Catherine's lez-a-fair attitude towards the truth. Lesi-fair. Oh, my God. Now, that is new information. Lesi-fair actually was the working title. It's her kind of, it's how they figure out she lies. Right. And how they figure out other people are lying, because they can directly compare them.

Okay, we're going to get to this. We're going to get to this. I suppose what I mean is that she doesn't have that, like, Catherine of Aragon, who spoke a million languages and is the daughter of this person and that person, and lives in it is so impressive. Or Ambelin, who was equally as impressive in her own way. And then there's Catherine and she's quite pretty. And it's sort of like, where does she even appear from?

So there was a bit of a debate for a while about when she was born. And in the 1990s and early 2000s, a date of 1525 was settled, which is way too late. Is that like my rock papers as a group of historians just to be one out? Yes. Right. Okay. And then it stuck. And it would mean she was like 14, 15 when she got married, which is...

It's not inconceivable, but it's young. The problem is that she would have been too young to join the ladies of wedding. Ladies and wedding is a little. Well done. So it has to be 16 because they don't let an ambassador on the basis of age. Okay, okay. So, but the other, which is bizarre, which is given all the problems we have into your history, sometimes you would kill for a firm source in someone's age.

Yep. And the French ambassador specifically states that she was 18 in 1540 and he met her in many occasions. He was her guest at hunting weekends. So actually, much older, traditional date of birth of 1522, maybe at a push 1523, but almost certainly 1522 is when she's born. She's born to the younger son of the second Duke of Norfolk, Edmond is a bit of a shagger, a bit of a drinker. It's just a bit of a sort of jock and he torches his career at court because one of the things I found

was the score sheet for the 1511 joust and he's the only one that beat Henry the 8th and after that. Oh, that's just a rookie mistake. He obviously, like the lust for victory takes over. So Edmund's always sort of middling of the road. He does get into debt. Catherine's almost certainly born in Lambeth.

That's how she's referred to, Catherine Howard of Lambeth. And her mother dies when Catherine's probably about five or six, Edmund is constantly asking his relatives for help. And then he finds the sort of alpha-organised niece, Anne Boleyn, who said, well, I'll do it. And she gets him a job in the colonial administration in Kelly.

And he goes there, and Catherine is sent to live with his stepmother, the Diage of Duchess of Norfolk. We do know that Edmund suffered a little bit from incontinence later in life. There's a letter to his host, Lord and Lady Lyle. saying that he can't come to dinner at that night because last night I did be pissed my bed for which my wife hath sore beaten me So he marries again

That's too much information there My schedule won't permit is fine Declying with regrets Might you to be fair That's completely, you can't argue with that No she can't be like listen, bring a path In fact that might actually be one you keep in your back pocket Because nobody can argue with that

If I pissed the bed and got beaten up He's going to dispute that She's like, that's fine. I'll rearrange my plasmore. I just like, you deal with that. It's fine. I was just like, Arthur, we are never inviting them again. Nope, never.

Never. Wow. Maybe he didn't want to be invited back. Maybe he hated on our Lyle's dinner parties. I was like, do you know what? I'll tell her I piss myself. And then. All right, you're painting a picture.

Okay. So this is the dad. So this is Edmund. Her mother is called Joyce, but the Howard's insist on referring to her in their genealogies as Joe Casta. Oh, nice. But it was Joyce. Right, Joyce.

she comes from a pretty large family one of her brothers, Henry, goes with her. They're sort of all formed out to relatives. Yeah, this seems a little unstable this childhood. So she, and when she gets the Dodger duchesses, Agnes is, you know, thriving in widowhood. This is the dogman she's staying with. Yes, right.

So Agnes has been jewelled sort of initials of her A in diamonds. She loves being a fabulously rich widow. She's living the life. Loves it. And also, she is. is someone that people want to get their daughters with because the Victorian sort of painter is this like ramshackle, derelict guardian.

But actually, everyone wants to send their daughter there because Agnes takes such good care of them. She pays for beds for them. How old is Agnes? Agnes is in her mid-50s. Okay. So, yeah, she's,

and she brings in a lot of dependence from Lincolnshire and Norfolk where her family are originally from. So she divides her time between Chesworth in Surrey and then Agnes also has use of the family townhouse, Norfolk house and Lambeth. So that's really where she divides her time. We used to think, again, you will, I hesitate to say this because you know who the culprits are, but the Victorians. Yes. So the Victorians create a narrative in which Catherine's first physical relationship is in about 1536. And they seem to pick that because they think it's a dramatic moment because her cousin

Anne Boleyn's just being executed. That sounds like the Victorians. They're like, oh, that must have been when it was. Yes. And then what then happens is when we have this moment colliding in the 1990s that they're being born in 1525, that makes her 10 or 11. So it becomes a story of abuse, of child abuse. Are any of those true? No, they're not. So I should say I really do not agree with the Manix theory being, but it being sort of child sexual abuse. The reason being that Manix is referred to as young Manix.

Who is Manix? So he is a musician. He's insufferable, by the way. He's the kind of person who at house parties. He's like, do you want to hear what I wrote? Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.

No, never. No, I don't. Ever. Ever. No. Oh, now he's playing the guitar. They're like, oh, who would let him ring the guitar in? Joe Casta.

Thought we talked about, no. Okay, cool. So Henry Manick's is hired with another young man in the household to teach Catherine and another girl music. This sounds like a disaster. Yes. So for us, obviously, particularly when we're looking at imbalances and relationships, he sounds like a music teacher. Right. It's really more that they play music together.

But Manix is just dreadful. Anyway, he is called Young Manix. He's not yet married. And though he does have someone in Lambeth who he's telling he wants to marry. Right. It also wasn't 1536. It was 1538. And the reason we know that is that a servant mentioned.

that it started at the point she arrived. So I had to go obsessive. So she was brought into the household to look after Catherine's cousin, Agnes, who is brought in when her father goes in a diplomatic mission. And he goes in the diplomatic mission in early 1538.

So how old would she have been? So Catherine's about 16 at this point. 16 and he's... He's probably early 20s, I think. Maybe a little... Young enough to be being called young. This is it. So I would, I always,

err on the side of making him a little bit older just so it doesn't look like you're making excuses. What is the oldest credible date? I think it's probably... You can still be called young? 21, I think, is probably... I think for the Chudor's, young is usually... I think teens.

He could have been her age. No older than... 21. Let's say 21. So he's... And I... Like, I have any kind of expertise in this at all. But yeah, I agree.

I spoke to a couple of people who... Who have written about, like, musicians and music lessons. And they said, you're looking at early 20s of the latest if he's still young Manix. Right. Okay. And that would have been a standard age for her do you have been learning and for him do you have been teaching. Once you get into other subject, it's very different. So things like rhetoric or Latin or theology.

But music is sort of almost treated, excuse me, more surpass time. A necessary one for them to learn. Dancing is actually apparently pretty similar. And so it's fencing. Okay. But anyway, I digress. they start a physical relationship. How do we know this?

Because the servant in question is horrified when she finds out and says that you're you are a servant and she is the niece of a duke and her family will kill you. That's, yeah, okay, that's fair. She was like watch out. She kind of reaches out to him because they're both of the same social class and the sense of solidarity. Like, what the fuck?

She's like, you cannot be sleeping with her. Yeah. And he says, oh, we. haven't yet. Right. He might be lying, though. He could have been. He does, I don't think I can say like the worst word.

Can I say the C word? Oh, please. Yeah, so he says, I have had her by the cunt and would know it amongst 100. So it has probably been digital penetration at this point. But he, someone tells Catherine, this is the first example of the Catherine that I love, which is like, oh, your tears are not my problem. So he has been asking her to go all the way. and she has said yes and then changed her mind and it hasn't happened.

Someone then tells her he has told this new servant who's quite Puritan and quite godly and really judges Catherine what's been going on between you. So she says, Malix, let's go for the walk in the orchard, which is where Catherine likes to do her breakups. You've got to have a good location. Yeah, yeah. She's like, isn't it lovely? By the way, we are never going to happen ever.

Oh, wow. Okay. And he starts crying. And she said, why are you crying? You're the one. I'm the one who was insulted. This is really, I have no idea why your face is wet. And he says, like, I only did it because I love you.

She says, that's not really how that works. And she breaks it off with him. And she was like, that's, we're done. Oh, he's one of those. He's, yes, he's just toxic, whiny poison. Crying. I'm like, why are you crying? Yeah, why are you crying?

You did this. Yeah. So she then, not long after, probably the tail end of 1538, she starts up a relationship with someone who's a little bit more socially appropriate. His name is Francis Durham. He is from Norfolk. He is a younger, I think youngest son of a gentry family. You have to go deep into family trees for this.

But interestingly, we have, he's one of nine children. And we have, the first six have dates of birth. But the youngest three, all of whom died outside of Norfolk, don't. So it was a genealogical survey that they got these from. So sister Dorothy marries in Oxfordshire Jane joins a convent and Francis ends up going to join the Dieter Duchess. But we know

that he is still considered a child in about 1530 and that he is given a livery by the Duchess in 1536. So he's probably, I would say if I had to take a guess, he's born in about 1518, 1519, 19, so three, four years older than her. That is the last good thing I can say for him. He's a prick. He is a prick.

Oh, she has a tight then? I would say if, I mean, in conversations you can be more relaxed and you would be in writing. I would say he takes a lot of the boxes for narcissism. Really? Yes. So with the child. Explain. So one theory that this, by the way, is of all the things I've written, there's one sentence in my biography of her that I wish I'd be more tactful with. I don't usually, where I sort of said like this idea that she was a victim of paedophilia and then of rape by Durham.

It's only possible if you ignore all the evidence. and I just wish that I had said, phrased it differently. It sounded like I was being very dismissive off the issue. Okay. But the modern theory that Francis raped her is just not sustainable. Partly because we have testimony from people who said, like, they moved bed because the signs of Catherine and Francis enjoying themselves behind the curtains was too much. Catherine stole the key to the bedroom to let him in. But I think there is a binary of these relationships where we think, obviously, if it's a coercive

relationship, it is unhealthy. Consensual is healthy, but there is also consensual and unhealthy. And I think, and Francis to me falls into the third category. So my market stall on the narcissism thing is that they start up in late 1538. He's very good looking. He's already shagged someone in the household called Joan Bulmer, who is telling us. and Catherine like, oh, he's like 10 out of 10. They do sleep together.

Catherine is infatuated, but not so much that she sort of loses the run of herself. Francis does kind of love bombing thing, which is Catherine has no money of her own. So he's like, I'll give you money. She loves fashion. And so he gives her money for the Silk Woman of Lambeth. And she gets, I think, a turning point. It's a really little comment that she makes in a later letter. But I thought, oh, that's interesting.

It's quite fashionable in 1539 when this is happening there's sort of silk flowers have become a thing and she gets one made for herself but Francis goes behind her back and tells the silk woman to turn it into to change the floral design so that the flowers used are the language of forget me not it's like eternal love.

Oh, it's weird. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like that. I didn't want that. I wanted to rose. Yeah, yeah. That's a weird thing to have done. Yes.

And so she, I think many people, so he then moves from that kind of love bombing into using the love to control. And then he gets into what will get married. He's richer than her, right? He, yes, he will have more than she will. Okay. But she is much more high ranking than he is. Right. So she's more high ranking, but he's richer and older.

Okay. So he's, and he has this sort of, like, you know, he certainly has charisma. I have to say, I mean, I have to remind myself, Francis Durham died a terrible death. I moderate my tone. I find him so insufferable. And I think in many ways, again, it's just this thing of just because you have feelings. It is not the world's responsibility to respond to them. Manage your feelings.

Yeah. It doesn't matter how much you're in love, they have to love you back. Yeah. So he's sort of talking in front of all these other, you know, bright young. things in the Duchess's household we're going to get married. And they're hanging out in the Duchess as well. They're stealing picnics stuff. They're having late night picnics and whatever.

And Francis says, Catherine starts saying, oh, what if my, you know, my lady should hear this. And he was like, oh, well, by St. John will be wed. And Catherine's like, oh, this is moving quite fast. Yeah, it's a bit much. This is all. And what often happens in these relationships, I think, is that they go from

intense affection to suffocating. What's thrilling adoration at the start Doesn't always last that way The Duchess does find them kissing one day And to give her credit She is a true Democrat She punches both of them You know, the blows fall

With a classless vigour, I think But Catherine then I think is, I think, reading between the lines She's struggling to find a way out of this. Well, I've been saying we've all it, but I don't know if we've all done it, but yeah, I've definitely done that. It's a hurtled headlong into relationship. It's so intense.

And then by the time you realize, oh, God, you're mental. Yeah. It's like, it's very difficult to get out of it now. Oh, you're not sincere. Yeah, you're a crazy person and I don't like this anymore. So she has the go of, no, the problem is that we'll come back to haunt her is, were the discussions of marriage serious? And she insists they were not because she didn't take them seriously.

Right. But under canon law, if you. have that commitment and you sleep together, it kind of prevents you marrying someone else. So that's the first of the grenades to be stocked by Dera. In late 1539, the Duke of Norfolk gets in touch with a stepmother and says, the king is preparing to marry again. They're going to reconvene the queen's household. I have managed to secure four of the maids of honour places, two for one of his wards, one for another relative. He said, is there someone? What about Edmund's daughter? And the Duchess says, yeah, she's very beautiful, great singer, brilliant dancer.

She, and she really, really wants to go to court. I mean, she says later, all who knew me knew how desirous I was to go to court. But it also provides her with the perfect get-out-of-jail-free card because she can tell Frances, I have to go, be able. I have to go. I wish she could come. Yeah, so he starts off. So wish you could come.

She does it in the orchard. He cries. She's like, here we are again. And he was like, I love you more than life. and she's like, oh. Oh, squish, squish. So I, the boat's actually waiting. So,

so off she goes. I think of you often. She was like, miss you, Philip. So she goes off to court. And while she is still a lady and wedding to Anne of Cleaves, she has a brief fling with sort of the number one bad boy, hotty Thomas Culpepper.

And he wants them to start doing the horizontal tango. And she says, actually, it's a bit too soon for me. So he then shagged somebody else. And she's very, she's quite bewildered by this. And she does cry, which is apparently she's not much of a crier. And then Francis hears about Thomas comes up to court and is like, if I, you know, you said you would marry me. She was like, oh, wow, the boat comes in two directions. I can't believe you're here.

Oh, who, specifically, who let you in? Oh, no. He starts, he's like, you know, you said you love me. And she was like, yeah, I also said I wanted to flower in the shape of a rose. And that didn't happen either. That didn't happen either. So here we are. Wow.

Oh, this is awkward. So then around Easter of 1540, just after the collapse of the Thomas Culpeper liaison and Francis having a shit fit. At any point in this, by the way, is it, is anyone expecting that she's going to marry the king? No. So Easter 1540, the king's like, wow, she's stunning. the Dodger, Duchess of Norfolk, and Catherine's aunt, the Countess of Bridgewater, who I love, has very sort of 1930s old Hollywood vibes, like always glamorous, but could punch you in the face and feel no regret. They both know what's happened, and so does her uncle William. And they're like, oh, that's a lovely thought.

What could possibly go wrong? So Francis is sort of politely advised to go to Ireland. and he does go to Ireland and this is, I mean to give him credit this is one part of the story where I think actually this is,

it could be a bit cooler in history. He becomes a pirate. Yeah, like that's a bit interesting. That's an interesting thing. So yeah, he works as a pirate off the coast of Ireland and there's this whole thing about

with the aristocratic families in Ireland what is unregistered trade, what is piracy, it's all very nebulous. Right. And so Francis goes and makes a bit of money for himself, but he leaves his money with Catherine.

which will literally be used as proof that he sees her as his wife to be. She's like, I might spend this, guys. Yeah. Maybe in some flowers I want. And then in July 1540, Henry's divorce, Janice Clives goes through or annulment and Catherine marries him. And initially, everything looks fine. What's the appeal? Of Catherine.

Yeah. She's incredibly beautiful. She's a hearty. Yeah. So it's in fairness, because we. we, there's all this, I don't really know if there is a portrait of her that survived, but the consistent thing is, um, like one of the Habsburg diplomats

arise a year after she's dead and someone who knew her said she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, the most beautiful one of her time. A palace servant writes later, he said that she was a blazing beauty. Wow, okay, so like a real, yeah, a real stunner. The French ambassador says, though she's not as beautiful as some of the women in France, but he's the, he's French. He's the dissenter voice. Every, the less famous quotes, they're all about her being incredibly beautiful.

It does seem like men are like falling at her feet. Yeah. And also she, this I, I, this girl can catch a dick whenever she wants. She, absolutely. And sometimes a crime. She's, she's, she's, I always try with Catherine because it's so tragic in the end. I try to be like, don't feel, I know this sounds a bizarre thing to say, don't feel too sorry for or too certain because what you're then doing is allowing death to shadow the life.

Yeah, you're reading it in reverse. Yeah. She's got so much life. Like she loves life and she is just. the kind of person you want to go on and a night out with. She's very charismatic. She's a real sense of herself, which I love. And she's really, really good at being Queen Consort.

So she's got a good grasp of etiquette. So she always knows what to do in any situation. When she doesn't, she'll check with the Chamberlain. How does she host Anne of Cleves is tricky? So they go through the old records to see what they can do. but she and her grandmother or step-grandmother, her aunt and her uncle, William, not the Duke, they all know about this thing with Francis and they're... Oh, that's a difficult family meeting that one.

Yes. What do we do about this? What do we do about this guy? And he comes back in November of 1540 and he's like, I want to work for her at court. And they're like, oh. Oh, that's a terrible idea. Wouldn't it just be more fun? Like, I don't know, we'll place our shoes with rocks and dump into the river.

Wow, that's a terrible. idea. So they are treading water, really, at this stage. Yeah, they are trying to keep him sweet. Yeah. So at all hallows, Lord William, Uncle William, brings him to court to meet the Queen and the Dodger Doctor says, just be nice, just smile, get through it, we'll have to throw

crumbs here to this demented mallard. They're placating him, aren't they? Because they know that he can, he has information that can blow this all up. Literally. Catherine meets him at all hallows. He goes back and starts technically working for the Dodger Duchess. And I think what they say to him is, look, just at the moment there's no vacancies, we can't do anything in her household that attracts suspicion.

Leave it with us. They are just playing for time. The Dodger Duchess, I think, very clearly, hammers out a deal with him. In fact, it is clearly. There is a chest at her home in London where Francis's love letters, to you and, sorry, from Catherine are put, the poems he wrote about her, everything to do with her relationship is put into this chest. The Duchess will keep the chest and Francis will keep the key. So it's like mutually assured destruction. Right. I would have just burnt it. Yeah,

she, I think later she looks back on it and thinks, yeah. Yeah. So, but she's trying to assure him, we are not trying to screw you over here. And it works, until the next summer. And Francis loses his mind, or what we could jokingly refer to as his mind, and says, I want to work for her,

why has this not happened? This is cruising into stalk a territory now. I think this follows that narcissistic trait quite smoothly. Like, how dumb is this? She's married to the king. Shut the fuck up.

Well, in fairness, it's a king like Henry Ith who has such a reputation for being kind and cuddly. It's like of all the kings. Like, go for a stroll down traitors, whatever it is, and see the hands on.

Despite you mad twatts. Yep. So the Duchess is like, are we really doing this? He, and I always try to tell people, myself included, think about travel, think about time. So Francis says, I want to see her. By this point, Catherine is on a tour of the north. She's at Pontefract with the King. He has the shit of it in London and travels north.

You think how many days he had nights and inns and horse to think, what am I doing? Turn back. No. He turns up at Pontifract and. Catherine's like, oh, this guy again. What fun. So she has to think quickly.

And it's not true he becomes her secretary. That's a litter myth. He becomes a gentleman usher, which is sort of someone. Oh, so he needs an accident. He needs an accident fast. So he becomes very close friends with someone else on the staff

who had previously worked for the Duchess, a woman called Catherine Tilney, who he's distantly related to. And she seems to tell him, listen, the queen is behaving a bit oddly because by this point Catherine has restarted night time meetings

with her former flame Thomas Culpepper See now Catherine I might have some questions for you here I so this up to this point I'm not blaming her I'm completely on your side you weren't supposed to be queen

no one thought you were going to be queen there was a handsome music teacher who hasn't been fingered by a music teacher I mean really right nobody knew I think I started nodding too soon He'd say, yes, yes. I should have said a musician instead of music teacher.

That sounds terrible. Right, okay. Like, I'm on her side here, actually. And she was like, right, but now, but shit, I am going to go to court now. Yes. Fuck, I didn't know. If she'd known that this was on the cards, none of this would have happened. She would have deported herself completely differently.

And so I'm completely on her side. But now, again, what you said with him being so cuddly and understanding, Henry the 8th. Did you not see what happened to the last one? Well, Catherine. This is my theory. So I have two theories in this. She's very horny.

Three. I have three theories. Think of it from my point of view. I was very horny. Well, at 19, like, when you fall in love, you're often a lunatic. Oh, God, you are on you. You know, like, we have to find the prefrontal of it all. I think about some of the things that I did when I was 19.

I mean, I said this before, but if I was frozen in time to be remembered about who I was in love with at 17 and then at 19. Oh, my God. Like, you are an idiot. Yeah. Like, youth is a wonderful, you have a tight jawline and a high ass, but you are an idiot. Yeah. Like, you're so stupid. You waste them both.

Right? Yeah. We are all sluts and we're dumb sluts as well. That's the problem with youth. But we wonder should that have been the motto of somebody someone at the sugar court? Yes. Actually, it's much more beautiful in the original Latin. So I have two theories.

One people always say about Anne Boleyn, like, how could she have made this? I think we're asking the question the wrong way. So if we are pretty certain that Anne was innocent, people in Catherine's household and her family will have known that even more. And Henry did threaten his third wife, Jane Seymour, by saying she lost her head because she meddled in affairs of state. I wonder has someone sat her down and said,

Anne's problem was not the bedroom, it was the council chamber. Do not argue about politics with him. Do not outshine him. That's why she fell. Because in public, Catherine is like Teflon. There is no scandal. She doesn't pick aside politically.

She's Switzerland of neutrality when it comes to Queens. Is that what she's trying to avoid? And the fact that she's then told, oh, it had nothing to do with what Anne was doing privately, does she take the wrong or at least only half the right lesson from it? But she also knows that she had a head cut off. This is where that argument of mine does get a little bit harder to get it with the finish line. I won't lie to you. It's got a couple of truncations in it.

But the turning point for her is leant. of 1541. So it's just before it's sort of February March. Henry gets very, very ill at Hampton Court and nearly dies. And her elder brothers, Charles and George are in the Privy Chamber. So it's inconceivable that she didn't know how close he came to dying. How old is Henry at this point? Henry

turns, he's 49, he's about to turn 50. How health? I mean, he's very poorly at that point. Yes. In general, how's his health doing it this point? It's not as bad as some people think it is, but he's not, I think the fact that the causes of the illness are not completely trampled after 1541. So we know he lives to 1547. I don't think that she thinks she's about to be a widow anytime. I'd like to think of Catherine Hard and Thomas Culpepper as the Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour who didn't get away with it. Oh, okay. Does she have sex with Culpeper? Some people think I'm being overly generous to her or too naive.

I actually don't think so. And I think... Make a case. So when Culpepper is questioned, he says, oh, we hadn't yet. Okay. Okay. And Edward Seymour's like, oh, already too much. Yeah, yes, that's not helping. Yeah.

Yeah. No. So Liddy Rochford does, who is the Liddy and Whitting, Whoe arranges, it does think that they did. Right. But Catherine sort of swears at the very end, they didn't. Culpeper says they hadn't yet. I think, from what I've read of these notchernal meetings, they were circling closer to it. The only reason they didn't is because they got caught.

So this is not, don't make me be on Henry side about this, but like this is an emotional affair at least. Oh, without question. I mean, they joke about what's quite lovely when you read some of the things they said to each other was there's some really romantic moments. But there's also like they get to talk about exes who annoyed them. It's a lot in common. Yeah, like Thomas talks about Best Harvey, who's like really desperate. Catherine does this quite bitchy thing to Best Harvey. So basically he refers to like Best Harvey's his tenement.

because he liked what the rent was. But Bess isn't too shinily dressed. So Catherine sends her a really lovely dress and then tells Thomas that she did it so that his tenement would have a better facade. Which isn't... I know, it's a bit... And then she also...

He asks for some bracelets like that as a gift or something. And she said, why would you need them? Your arms are kept worn by other women. So she's getting... But she remembers what happened last time with them. But they have... they talk about best and they talk about,

seem to you've talked about Francis. And, you know, Catherine does say to him, you know, if I was still in the maiden's chamber at Lambeth, I'd have tried you. So I think it's circling closer to it. And then thanks to Francis, it never happens. So he's joined the court. He keeps making these really arrogant,

he's rubbing everyone up the wrong way, saying that he'd known Catherine long before they did. He knew her better than they ever would. Catherine's starting to press like three pounds here, 10 pounds here into his hand, take care what words you speak. The household is one that's predicated on etiquette. So they notice that these things are odd.

What is, why is this gentleman usher allowed to behave this way? And then they get back from the tour. They go to Hampton Court and the Archbishop Canterbury, Thomas Cramer is like, while you were away, I was in charge of the government. Does you know? The brother of the pushy servant who warned Henry Mannix came to him and was like, my sister has told me what the queen got up to before she got married. fucking grass.

Yeah. Yeah. What happened to, if anybody objects, speak now or forever, hold your peace? If it makes you feel better, he was later burned for heresy. I'm slightly better. You know, we tick our wins where we may. Snitches get stitches. You grass.

Yeah, absolutely burn. So yeah, he gets burned in 1546 for heresy. But he goes to Thomas Cramer and says, my sister has said, basically, he had asked the sister, why have you not asked for a job on the Queen's service? Like, come on. And she was like, well, because she's a woman of such light morals that I don't want to be associated with her. He tells the archbishop, the archbishop passes this information onto the king because he's wetting himself. Yeah, yeah.

There's early November, 1541, he sends a couple of councillors to this lady's house and ask her for details. And she gives the names, Henry Manix. And then she's in the other one after Henry Manning's was this guy, Francis Derham. That's then brought back to the court. And someone says, is that not the annoying gentleman usher? Why on earth would she give him a job unless they're starting it back up again? So they, Catherine is detained in her rooms, still unaware of what's happening. They go and talk to Manix.

It becomes very clear from Manix's testimony and everyone else that, yes, there had been some fooling around, but there hadn't been full consummation. So they can't do anything. It's, it's, they let him go. Right. They then divide the servants up who served the grandmother. And they bring Francis in for questioning. To make sure Catherine doesn't know what's happening, they lift him on a charge of piracy.

Right. Take him to the Tower of London. And he at this stage is not tortured. But they bring in Edward Waldegrave and Robert Damport, who were two friends of his, and they separate them. And they basically give exactly the same testimony about what has happened. They then go to Norfolk House, where with the worst timing in the world, they arrive, as the Duchess of Norfolk has broken up in the chest and has just managed to stuff the worst of the documents into the fireplace. And she's like, oh my God, you were coming.

Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So she goes to the Duchess of Norfolk goes. Shit. She's like, oh, hi. Hi. Please have a seat.

I'm just making a fire over here. Hi. These are old receipts. Kindling. The kindling. How are you? How's the king? So she's taking in for questioning.

So is the kind of. of Bridgewater. Now, to give both these women credit, and Uncle William, actually, they will not shop her. They won't, they, they could have saved themselves by saying, oh, she's a duplicitous harlot. They shouldn't do anything wrong. Wow. Okay. Wow. Yeah, they all

buckle. They all buckled down. Yeah. Uncle William comes back from France, and in one of my favorite stories, they're about to seize all their possessions. And they're like, where's your famous silver collection? He's like, I lost it on the journey back. Don't see that.

The water was really chopped. and it fell into the channel, but you are welcome to get it. Oh, nice. Strangely, William lives very well for the rest of his life and no one's quite sure why. So that probably buried it in the orchard. So they're all brought in and Catherine is questioned. And she makes three confessions, specifically about Manix and Durham. The third, the first one is missing.

The third one is the most famous one. The second one I found it had been collated at the back of a, collection of documents and just left there. And I lost my mind when I found it because it was, it was seven or eight pages long and she goes into detail about Francis. Wow. She remembers everything, the flour she mentions, the silk woman, everything she goes into it. And she essentially, in this says, the talk of marriage was not sincere.

And I gave him a job because I had to, because I didn't know what else to do. Now, she then later tries to change it and says that, he, um, that she never did anything willingly with Francis, that everything was coercion. But she also,

like she throws a lot of other people under the bus because essentially that meant other servants stood by and saw, like she, people, some people have said that I was too gentle on Catherine and that she was throwing dozens of people below her in the social hierarchy. I would have done.

Well, she was terrified and she was locked in her rooms and she was panicking. But, The problem is the changes between those two confessions are so stark. Oh, no. That they start to think, what else is she lying about? And she, in the panic where she makes the third confession, she does something lethal, which is she says, Francis is delusional.

Like, he thought I was having a thing with Thomas Culpepper, and that's ridiculous. And the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks, why would you, why earth would she mention him? Oh, no. So they. Oh, no. Catherine. It was just, I remember, I remember the moment of staring at it. And in like 3 a.m. I think this wasn't the library being like, no, no, no, no.

Like I was shouting at it. Yeah, like, no, don't do this. And so they order a search of Culpeper's rooms and they find a love letter that she wrote to him after the marriage. And so that's when it tumbles out about the late night meetings. And I, again, I can't believe I'm in the position like you were of having to briefly defend Henry the Yitz government. but the conclusions that they get to are, I think, probably wrong, but they're not unreasonable. Right. So a quirk of Catherine's historiography is she's actually never accused of adultery.

She's accused of planning it. Oh, okay. Which is enough by this. That's enough, yeah. It's enough by this stage because she is technically encompassing the death of the king. Now, Henry, for reasons best known to himself, has taken against Francis more than Thomas because he thinks Francis getting the job in her household was about wanting to marry her. Pushing jurisprudence to and probably beyond its limits,

Henry personally sanctions torture on Francis after the confessions. So you're like, you've got it. They ripped teeth out of the mouth of one of his friends, and nothing that they provide contradicts what came before. Wow. It's really awful. And they go for trial at the Guildhall in London on the 1st of December, 1541. Thomas is given the axe

and Francis is given hanging, drawing and quartering which is why I always have to remark because I find Francis just so heinous and awful. But so frustrating because like none of this needed to happen. No.

Silly, silly, silly sod. Like what on earth are you doing? This is an odd comparison to make and I can't remember which American TV host made this, but it was about Kim Kardashian and I've always, it always stuck. It was about, I think, her stalking by an ex.

Right. And he said, people get so hung up on like whether you like the Kardashians, you like reality TV or not. He was like, this is one of the wealthiest women in the world. And she still can't stop this. And that's what I think with Catherine. I'm like, you were at the very apex of the social hierarchy. And you could not tell Francis fuck off. To fuck off.

Yeah. And he needed to fuck off so badly. And if that family had been half as ruthless as they used to. of hope they would have been. They would have made sure he didn't come back from Ireland. But they, quite frankly.

Yeah. She's so hanged drawn and quartered. She is stripped of her title and spends her last winter under house arrest, sort of rural house arrest, at Zion House that will at this point is a disused Bridgetine convent. And it's gone now, but on the site of it is the Duke of Northumberland's London residence. she's then taken to the Tower of London

and what's really heartbreaking this is in February of 1542 I think by then she has convinced herself that she might be dismissed annulled and pardoned because she starts struggling and they have to wrestle her into the boat from Zion

House to take her to the Tower of London she would have passed under the point the bridge where Thomas and Francis 's heads were but it was winter so the sun would have set she wouldn't have seen them. She then is taken to the Tower of London where the constable Sir John Gage is very good to her and is very kind.

But she had always, in this moment where this bit of her resurrects itself, the perfect queen consort. And she asks for the block to be brought to her room so she can rehearse the execution. Why? Yeah. Two reasons. One to exit with dignity. And secondly, she also being queen when the conscious of Salisbury will.

was hacked apart by not because, so I think she wanted to make sure this goes as smoothly. Clearly. Yeah. The other thing about Catherine, this is one of the myths I hate busting because people love it is that when the Counties of Soulsbury was in prison, Catherine allegedly sent her like fur slippers and dressing gowns to keep her warm. It's not the case. It was just the Queen's Taylor.

The constable sourced them paid for them. He just used Catherine's Taylor. It wasn't a gift from her. It would mean too political for her to touch that, I think. But anyway, Catherine is executed on February 13, 15th, A few minutes later, her chief lady in wedding, Lady Rochford. That's a weird story that one. How that bitch ended up there is just like, that's such...

Jane, what are you doing? What on earth has happened here? You have... It's like one of those people who are like, you survive the Titanic and then all of a sudden you were like, I need to travel in the Lusitania. Like, what has happened here? Like, she must have just been like... I don't know how this has happened.

Yeah, well, my... Again, if I was doing a novel, or running a novel, I'm not sorry, my theory that I think Catherine was planning to marry Thomas Culpepper. So had George Berlin lived, Jane Berlin by 1539, 1538, 1539 would have been the Countess of Wormand, which was in Ireland, but one of the wealthiest titles in Europe. So she would have had like, I think it was like a $3,000 a year income. She would just have been rolling in wealth and a contest. Instead, she's in £100 per year. And if there is no Queen Consort's household, that's all she'll have. So I wonder is she kind of embedding herself as Catherine's confidence. So when the Dodger Queen's household is set up,

she is a very comfortable retirement home for the rest of her life. There are. I'm being as generous as I can, I think. It's interesting about, like, you know, the question that we're always have to ask about Ambellin is like, was she guilty? The answer is no. And with Catherine, it's much more complicated because, yeah, kind of. Well, yeah, she was kind of. But what's, What I love is, it was kind of late in the research, but there was a moment of like blue-blooded solidarity or like aristocratic trade unionism from the House of Lords where they tried to save her. And they were like, oh, actually, just given her status, we're not really sure that actually what she's done. Yes, okay, she doesn't deserve to be queen anymore. But yeah, when you break it down, all right, there was some shenanigans before Henry.

But like, surely that's not the end of the world. It's also not illegal at this stage. And it's not illegal. I don't know, maybe she'd told some fibs about being a virgin or whatever. Yeah, but that's a sin, not a crime. Right? And she's, she apparently hasn't shagged Culpepper. They're just having these meetings.

The House of Lords were like, this is like, it's like saying you were going to murder someone. Yeah, that's not a thing. Yeah. Except it kind of is a thing. Yeah, if you plan it and have the equipment. Yeah. But like, it's like if you're like, I was going to kick someone. It's like it's just not the same.

Yeah. And you don't, at least technically in Christianity, you're not really supposed to punish people for things they haven't done. Like, there's religious... She could have been sent to a nunnery. Yeah, exactly. She sent her into rural rustication and let her... I mean, and at one point, the Habsburg ambassador thinks, like, she'll be allowed to rot

into your relevance. Like, that's what will happen. The Habsburgs cannot, are like, really surprised when it goes to come... This is when people say Catherine was so stupid, she must have known what was going to happen. I'm like, well, if the House of Lords, the Habsburg Emperor and the Governor of the Netherlands all think that that's not what's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

You know, so it's Henry's vicious horrid. horrible bloodstained little fingers that do this. And that was one thing I really took away from the book, which was he pushed it through. And he really did, didn't he? He chased her into the grave. Yeah, he changed the law so Lady Rochford could be executed because she was a crazy person by that point. He ordered torture of these men after the fact. And listen, I am, I think anyone watching this will see, I am not a Francis Derham's town here.

But when you're having someone being tortured for information that they've already provided. They've already given to you. That's sadistic, isn't it? So there's a final question then. Although we could talk about this forever. I am Team Catherine. I can tell you're team Catherine as well. The one thing I will say, I always started like throw in because this is a horrible trait in her.

But I always like to tell people that because I think one flaw rescues her from just being the footnote to your own death. Like, I like to give her a life. Yeah. So she was the kind of person I think might have been rude to waiters. So, which is like one of my least favorite traits of people. But she was quite rough. She could be quite demanding with her maids. Okay.

Yeah. Like stay up late. Why are you complaining? Why can't remember the 13 new rules I've set? So do you want to be fired? Oh, okay. Yeah. So listen, we're not talking about a perfect person here at all.

No, no. But perfect's not history. Yeah. Yeah. You can't demand that from people. Yeah. But how would you like her to be rehabilitated? I mean, because the enduring image of Catherine,

I guess is probably the one that's been left to us from that series, The Tudors, where she's like a 14-year-old Swifty, just running around just being stupid with blonde hair. Someone who is a victim and a great example of a victim, but is not a victim all their lives. Yeah. And I think someone who, you know, by the standards of her day, 18, 19, 20 was an adult, but not a fully formed adult.

No. So somewhere between what she had been and what she could have been. And I think to me that's sort of the tragedy. I think there's someone with an incredible spark, a real sense of self, you know, telling Manix and Durham to jump, like, not my problem. And also someone who I think was a very dignified and elegant public queen consort, who, like many office at 19 and 20, made a really bad mistake. that in your 30s or 40s would be inexplicable.

Yeah. But the last thing I would say is the idea that she did something that she knew would end her life is just not true. People wiser and more experienced than her were shocked at how her story ended. Garret, you have been marvellous. Once again, thank you so much. Do people know more about you? Where can they find you? Instagram underscore Gareth Russell and then my website, garth Russell.

dot co. com. Well, fabulous. I might write my own book. Catherine Howard, Young, Dunful of Cumb. Thank you for listening. And if you like what you heard,

don't forget to like with you and follow along wherever it is, you get your podcasts. And if you wanted us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was edited by Hannah Feodorov

and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again, Betwixt O'Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.